OPI Texas Collection Spring 2011 Swatches and Review

This year's spring nail polish collection from OPI is Texas-themed. I've never been to Texas but I have a lot of Texan friends... I wonder what they'd have to say about these shades? Any Texans want to weigh in on them?

There are twelve shades as usual, and they are:


Austin-tatious Turquoise. You know, this looks like such an amazing color in the bottle and it looks pretty great in the picture... But it's actually a freaking nightmare. The color is great- a sheer turquoise glass fleck shimmer with subtle pink duochrome... But the formula! Oh, the formula. It's sheer and watery, a combination that can only spell disaster. What you're seeing here is SIX COATS. Six watery, runny, goopy coats. The color is dustier and less vibrant in real life. If you want something similar (glass fleck duochrome turquoise) without the weird formula, try Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus.

EDIT: I've been receiving reports from people who own this color, and a few of them say that their bottle isn't watery and sheer like mine. However, the majority of people I've heard from say they have watery bottles like mine. It seems like there are multiple batches of this color floating around.



Don't Mess With OPI. Nice dusty medium green. I like the muted quality of this, it's not your standard green creme. It's like if OPI Jade Is The New Black and Rescue Beauty Lounge Orbis Non Sufficit had a baby.


It's Totally Fort Worth It. Very, very hard to capture the finish of this color. It's not just a plain silver shimmer, it has tiny pink-red sparkles! You can see some of those elusive sparkles in the middle of the bottle on this picture. It would be my favorite color of the collection if it weren't for the sheer, watery formula. This is four coats.


I Vant To Be A-Lone Star. I'm not understanding the name of this. I get the "Lone Star" part, but 'vant'? Is that like a Green Acres reference or something? Wait, did Green Acres even take place in Texas? Eh... guess it doesn't matter. The color is nice. Light greyed-out blue with silvery shimmer. Tranquil and serene. Reminds me of another ancient discontinued OPI... drawing a blank on the name.


San Tan-tonio. Light milky brown creme. Surprisingly flattering on my cool skintone. Makes me think of suede.


Suzi Loves Cowboys. I used flash on this color because it looked too black in natural light. The flash shows the base color and how it looks in sunlight. It looks about two shades darker in dim light. It's just a dark chocolate brown creme, nothing too exciting... But very unusual for spring!

Now for the surprise: the jellies sorbets.

Big Hair, Big Nails. A red coral, or a light cherry sorbet.


Do You Think I'm Tex-y? A deep beet pink/purple sorbet.


Guy Meets Gal-veston. A medium orange coral sorbet.


Houston, We Have A Purple. Haha, my favorite name out of all of them! This is a deep magenta borderline purple sorbet.


Too Hot Pink To Hold 'Em. An awesome saturated pink sorbet. My picture doesn't do it justice, you have to try it out! (Fixed my typo, oops!)


Y'all Come Back, Ya Hear? A medium orange sorbet.

Now, OPI is really pushing this "sorbet" finish pretty hard lately. They describe it as a completely new finish. It's a semi-sheer or translucent wash of color which has the effect of looking like hard candy or popsicles... If you've been into polish for a while, this should sound familiar, because it's what we polish junkies know as a "jelly" finish. Jelly polishes have been around for a long time, but they're not very common. Despite the whole "It's not a jelly, it's a sorbet, it's brand new!" thing, OPI does this finish really well.

I mean, just look at them, they're beautiful. You may not be able to pick up on the jelly effect of the finish from my pictures, but the finish is really spectacular. It's not so sheer that it looks clear, and it's just translucent enough to look soft and squishy. The colors they chose are vibrant and candy-like and they're perfectly suited for the jelly/sorbet finish.

Initially, I did not have high hopes for the sorbets. They all looked like boring colors and I thought they would be too sheer. And, as usual, my mind changed once I actually put them on my nails. They're lovely. I did three coats of all and I think they're perfect.

The formula on this collection is varied. The sorbet/jelly shades are nearly perfect, only a little on the thick side. The other six shades are watery, runny and sheer. I had a really hard time applying them with Austin-tatious Turquoise being the most difficult and I Vant To Be A-Lone Star being the easiest. The brushes were inconsistent and uneven in shape, size and smoothness. Some were rough, a few were normal. I am used to OPI having a very consistent and reliable formula, this collection is hopefully just a fluke.

I'm torn on my opinion of the collection overall. I had written off the sorbets before I even tried them and they ended up being my favorite part. They're very spring/summer appropriate predictable colors, but the sorbet finish makes them wonderful.

The other shades seem too random. There doesn't seem to be one cohesive theme within the color range. You've got brown, green, sparkly turquoise, silver.... They just don't mesh well. And they're a little bit sleepy, I have to admit. Though, I've realized that OPI's spring collections have been very sleepy for the past few years and the summer collection is the exciting one.

Also, the names are starting to be a little too ridiculous. Some are cute, but others get dangerously close to Misa-level cheese and length. I did really love "Houston, We Have A Purple."... I'm still giggling about that one!

So, overall, the new sorbet polishes are definitely worth trying on if you get the chance. If you've never tried a jelly finish polish before, you'll probably be delightfully surprised. People with longer nails may have issues with visible nail line, but if that doesn't bother you, you'll probably love them. The inconsistent, watery formula on the rest of the colors turns me off to them a bit, but Don't Mess With OPI and It's Totally Fort Worth It are worth the frustration.

(These were sent to me for review.)

Urban Decay Rollergirl Nail Polish Kit for Summer 2011

Hey, Urban Decay's doing nail polish again... This summer we have the 70's roller disco themed Rollergirl Nail Kit. I'm still waiting for the re-release of Toxin, Id, Bruise and all the rest of the old classics, but this will have to hold me over until then. I refuse to accept the possibility that that might not happen...


The Rollergirl Nail Kit is a set of six mini (5ml /0.17fl oz) polishes displayed in a floral-printed tray. The tray is pretty sturdy, but there's no lid or anything, so you will probably need to keep the plastic outer box to keep the bottles secure.


The back of the box. I like the combination of the hot pink with the shiny gold foil. Though, I must say... It reminds me of the wallpaper in my mother-in-law's house.


Fame. Faaaaame. Makes a man take things over. This shade is a pearly, frosty beige-nude with some little silver microglitter.



Love Train. This shade is a pearl white with a seashell/mother of pearl effect. It has subtle pink, green and gold duochrome at certain angles and you can bring out the duochrome more by layering this over a dark color. It is sheer at one coat but opaque at three.



Miss T. Gorgeous bright neon fuchsia with silver and violet pearl finish. You don't usually see brights with a pearl finish, so this one is pretty special. Apparently it's named after one of Wende Zomnir's friends, but part of me wonders if it's a nod to that line about Wende competing for Miss Texas as a teen. Purely speculation, of course... Speaking of brand history, the article that contains the Miss Texas comment also says this:

"One day, long ago, Sandy Lerner (cofounder of Cisco Systems) couldn't find the right shade of purple nail polish to satisfy her alternative make-up tastes. Her lamentations over the fact that there were 500 colors of pink polishes, but no greens or purples motivated her to create Urban Decay Cosmetics. A woman of action, Sandy teamed up with David Soward "the token suit" and Wende Zomnir "creative dynamo". They collectively unleashed her vision on the cosmetics world in January of 1996. The line of alternative colors, which began with 10 shades of lipstick and 12 shades of nail enamel, appeared in a memorable advertisement with the tagline, "Does Pink Make You Puke?""

Hmm, not enough greens or purples... I miss that Urban Decay. When the colors were edgy, not just the names. And now I've gone on a tangent. On to the next shade...



Superfreak. Light gold foil. I think Rick James would approve.



Woodstock. Bright neon pink creme. If this looks familiar, it's because it was also in the Summer of Love Nail Kit from last summer.



Xanadu. Man, Kubla Khan sure can decree some hot glitter polish. Sexy. Stately, even. Wow, that was bad. Really, really bad. Yikes. Anyway. This has a sheer purple base with different types of purple glitter. There's a little silvery lavender glitter to enhance the sparkle. Super awesome. Also very similar to the brand new Finger Paints Peaceful Purple shade.

The formula on these was thick. Woodstock and Miss T were the easiest to apply and the most opaque. I used three thick coats of each shade in these pictures. Xanadu, Love Train and Fame needed all three, the rest were opaque at two. The brushes are a little too short to hold enough polish for a smooth application, tilting the bottles helps. The drying time is average, except for Superfreak which dries lightning fast for some reason...

Overall, really nice mix of popular shades for summer, but most of the colors are a bit... dupe-able. Miss T and Xanadu are gorgeous and I really love the mother of pearl look of Love Train. The packaging is nice, but I have to say that I miss the cute glittery bags the previous two sets came with. I like sparkly bags!

This is currently available on Urban Decay's website, but I'm sure it'll soon show up at Sephora like the other sets did.

I know I'm not alone in begging for Urban to re-release all their vintage colors... Every time I hear they're going to do a new nail polish set I get this rush of hopeful excitement that maybe they'll put a couple of their original shades in it. Same for you? I want some vintage duochrome goodness... Oil Slick, Id, Asphalt, Bruise, TOXIN. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one...

(This was sent to me for review.)